East of the Sun
by SouthSideStory
Summary: Sasuke and Sakura have a pattern: they save each other, precisely when they need help the most. SasuSaku.
1. Part One

**Part One**

They are starving. Sakura knows this, can see it in the hollowness of her sisters' cheeks, feel it in the ache of her own empty belly. The rice is gone, and it has been so long since she ate fish or pork that she can barely remember the taste of meat. They drink hot tea, hoping to trick their stomachs into an illusion of fullness.

Ino and Karin lie in the bed the three of them share, weak as newborn kittens, too tired even to cry. They have given up, so exhausted and pained by hunger that they no longer fear death. Sakura wants to lie with them, but she knows that if she does she may not have the strength to get up again.

There is a full-length mirror on the wall, too cracked to sell, but it reflects the truth back at you clear enough. Sakura stands in front it and examines herself. Fair skin, wide green eyes, a too-slender figure. She is a beautiful girl, and if she discards humility, she can see that she is perhaps the prettiest of her sisters. Hunger shows in the way her best yukata falls looser than it should, but Sakura doubts this will matter. She pinches her cheeks to bring color to her pale skin, brushes her hair, stands straighter.

She once had hair near as long as Ino's, but she cut it in the summer and sold it to a wig-maker—it fetched a fine price, for its unusual color—and now it falls in a short, pink fringe around her jawline.

Maybe her body will fetch a fine price too.

She has to leave before Otousan comes back, or else he'll stop her. So Sakura looks one last time at her little sisters—sleeping, innocent, dying by inches—and gathers up her courage.

_I have to do this. There isn't any other choice. I have nothing left to sell but myself._

But when she opens the front door, there is someone standing on the stoop already. A handsome young man around her own age, eighteen or nineteen, wearing well-made clothes of blue and black. There is something familiar about his dark eyes, but she can't quite place the connection between present and past.

"What do you need?" Sakura asks.

"Just to speak with you," he says. "Can we talk somewhere private?"

Sakura steps outside, closes the door behind her as quietly as she can. "Why should I take you anywhere? You haven't even introduced yourself?"

He frowns and says, "You don't recognize me."

"No." Sakura wraps her arms around herself, guarding against the early morning chill. Autumn is here, and it's only dawn. The cold of the night has yet to give way to the warmth of day.

"I'm Uchiha Sasuke," he says.

Sakura damns her own insolent tongue. She has been speaking—rudely—to the richest man in the prefecture.

"Will you let me in now?" he asks.

She nods, invites Sasuke inside, and leads him to the kitchen. They sit in rickety, wooden chairs around a much-abused table, and suddenly all Sakura can see is the evidence of her poverty: stained, ragged dishtowels that he probably wouldn't allow servants to dust with; the lack of a sink, because the house has no running water; the conspicuous absence of food, a kitchen's signature feature.

"What brings you here?" Sakura asks.

"You," he says.

She's lightheaded from hunger, and she doesn't fully have her wits about her. Sakura waits for him to elaborate, certain she misheard or misunderstood.

Sasuke props his elbows on the table, laces his fingers together, and says, "If you'll return to my home with me, I'll make your family as rich as you are poor right now."

Fear twists her empty stomach, but she forces her face to remain cool, unreadable. There's only one thing a man like this could want from a girl like her, but if she shows her trepidation or disgust, it could cost her loved ones their lives. So she reigns in her temper and asks, all business, "How much money are we talking about exactly?"

He looks mildly surprised for a moment, as if this isn't the response he expected. "Enough for your father and sisters to live comfortably, in a new home, until they're old and grey."

"How long would I have to stay with you?"

"I'm inviting you to come, not forcing you to remain," Sasuke says. "You can leave whenever you wish."

"And if I wish to leave in a week?" she asks.

"The payment remains the same," he says.

"Then I'll do it." She'd been a heartbeat away from prostituting herself to the nearest stranger for a hot meal and enough coins to buy the same for her family; this is a much better bargain, unseemly though it is.

"You don't have to decide now," Sasuke says. "Think on it for a week, and if you're certain then—"

"My sisters might not have that long," Sakura says bluntly. "I'll come with you and—and do whatever you ask."

He scowls, as if she was refusing his offer rather than accepting it. "Sex isn't what I want from you, if that's what you think." Sasuke stands, pulls a small drawstring bag from inside his cloak, and places it on the table before her. "This is yours to keep, even if you change your mind. I'll send a cart to pick you up in the morning."

Without waiting for her to escort him to the door, Sasuke sees himself out. Once he's gone, Sakura opens the little black bag and dumps its contents onto the kitchen table. Fat, golden coins spill out, bright and lustrous against the scratched wood, and the promise of more hinges on her word.

* * *

Otousan rages and her sisters cry, begging her not to go, but in the end Sakura says, "It's my decision to make. I'm doing this."

For the first time in ages, her family eats a proper breakfast. Grilled fish, miso soup, rice, and tamagoyaki. It's hard when she's so hungry, but Sakura eats slowly and carefully, just as she had at dinner last night, in an effort to keep her food down.

Then she packs a small bag, mostly because she has little to choose from—so many of her things have been handed down to Ino and Karin—but Sakura reminds herself that she won't need much anyway. If Sasuke wasn't lying, she'll be allowed to leave his company soon.

Ino places a cloth-wrapped bundle on the bed, and Sakura knows without looking what it is: Okaasan's wedding silks.

"I can't take that," Sakura says. "Our mother wanted you to have it."

"Well now I'm giving it to you," Ino says. She smiles, but there are tears in her eyes. "You can't go to the Uchiha estate looking like a pauper."

"We _are _paupers."

"Don't be stubborn, Forehead," Ino says. "Just accept it."

Sakura opens the bundle and touches her mother's kimono. It's the last fine thing their family owns, the only remnant of better times that remains in this falling-down house. A piece of the past crafted from sky blue silk (perfect for Ino's coloring).

"Thank you," Sakura says, and then she hugs her little sister.

Karin walks in, hurries over, and wraps her arms around both of them. "Come back soon, all right, Sakura?"

"I will. Promise."

_I can't cry_, Sakura tells herself. _If I start, I might not stop._

An hour later, she waits outside, travel pack slung over one shoulder, waiting for the cart Sasuke said he would send. Clouds hang grey and heavy overhead, ready to rain at any moment. She forbade her father and sisters from waiting with her, and now she has nothing to do but think about the predicament she's in. Going to live with a stranger for some mysterious purpose.

She knows no more about Uchiha Sasuke than the rest of the prefecture. Only that he's obscenely wealthy, handsome, unmarried, and the last of his family line. Rumor has it that his older brother, Itachi, fled the country after their parents' deaths, and that Sasuke spent several years searching for him. He only just returned a few months ago, and no one has the courage or audacity to ask whether or not he found his brother. Regardless, he could have the company of any woman he wanted, so why pay for hers?

A fancy horse-drawn carriage (that Sakura wouldn't dream of calling a "cart") stops in front of her house. The driver is a white-haired young man with a charming, but crooked-toothed smile who introduces himself as Suigetsu.

Sakura climbs into the carriage before she changes her mind. _Just think of Ino, Karin, and Otousan. I can do this. I can do this for them._

* * *

It takes the better part of a day to reach the Uchiha estate, and by the time they arrive Sakura is cold, anxious, and hungry. But she forgets her discomfort when she steps out of the carriage and gets her first view of the castle, a great construction of stone and wood five stories high. She has never seen a building half so large or grand, and this must show on her face because Suigetsu laughs. "That's how I felt the first time I saw it," he says. "Come on, I'll show you inside."

Sakura follows him and asks, "Did your employer tell you what he wants with me?"

"No," Suigetsu says, "but then Sasuke isn't one much for talking."

"He doesn't mind his servants calling him by his given name?" Sakura asks, wary, because this doesn't tally with what little she knows of rich people.

Suigetsu shrugs. "If he was the kind of man who cared, I wouldn't work for him."

She hasn't known Suigetsu long, but Sakura can believe this of him.

Inside, the castle is all gleaming hardwood floors and beams, ivory walls, paintings of landscapes, rice paper lamps. Wealth so great that it can afford to minimize its own grandeur, but it is still the most beautiful place Sakura has ever seen.

Suigetsu leads her to the dining room, and there she sees Sasuke sitting on a pillow before a perfectly polished table. A servant is just now placing a bowl of steaming soup before him, and to her great embarrassment, Sakura's stomach growls loudly.

"Have a seat," Sasuke says, and he motions to the pillow across from him.

She sits, smooths her blue kimono, and silently thanks Ino for her generosity. Sasuke is dressed all in unrelenting black, but his clothes are of the finest cut and quality. If she had worn anything besides Okaasan's wedding silks, Sakura would have felt a beggar by comparison.

Dinner is a feast unlike anything she has ever seen before. She had missed the first few courses, but Sasuke asks his servants to bring them out again so that she can try everything. Eel and salmon rolls, yellowtail sashimi, simmered vegetables with chicken, suimono soup and miso soup, steamed rice, grilled trout. All of it is prepared perfectly, and Sakura eats some of everything. She's careful to handle her chopsticks gracefully, the way Okaasan taught her, even though she's hungry enough to eat bare-handed.

Sakura expects Sasuke to explain his purpose in summoning her, but he doesn't speak one word throughout the entire meal. So once the dishes are cleared away, she asks, "Why am I here?"

"Because I wanted your company," he says simply (as if there is anything simple about this arrangement).

"But why _my _company?" she asks. "You don't even know me."

"I do know you," Sasuke says, and now there's a hint of impatience in his voice. "And you know me too, Sakura."

"I would remember if I'd ever met you before yesterday."

"You would remember if you met anyone by my name, but Uchiha Sasuke is not the name I gave you," he says. "I called myself Ryu."

For a long moment, Sakura can't speak, can't breathe. Memories she'd pushed away surface, and suddenly all she can see is _Ryu_, the boy who stumbled into the backyard of the farmhouse (the nice, cozy place where her family lived before Okaasan died of cholera and Otousan was injured in the war). He was filthy and too-thin, malnourished and dehydrated. So when he begged her for three things—water, rice, and secrecy—Sakura complied. She hid him in the old barn, brought him food, and at night, when she knew she wouldn't be missed, she snuck into the loft just to speak with him. They talked into the early hours of the morning, about things large and small, until the sky began to lighten, and then she returned to her bed. For a week, this became a ritual, but Ryu never would say where he came from or why he needed to hide. On the seventh night, Sakura fell asleep beside him, and when she woke in the morning, he was gone.

"You're Ryu?" she asks.

He nods. "I am."

She can see it now, the resemblance between the boy she knew and the man before her, if only in his dark eyes. Everything else about him has hardened, the softness of childhood worn away.

"What happened to you? Where did you go? How did you get back home? Why did—"

"The answers you want don't matter," Sasuke says, "so there's no point in asking those questions."

"Of course they matter." She stands up, walks around the table, and kneels beside him. Perhaps it's too forward, but Sakura cups his cheek. Sasuke doesn't lean into her touch, but neither does he pull away. Emboldened, she says, "I never forgot you. I thought about you all the time until—well, until I couldn't afford to anymore."

"I remembered you too," he says, "and I wanted to thank you for everything you did for me."

"Is that why I'm here?" Sakura asks. "Is that why you helped my family?"

Sasuke shrugs, as if his assistance is a small thing. "You helped me when I needed it most. I wanted to return the favor."

"I gave you well water and what food I could sneak from the pantry," Sakura says. "You've given my family wealth, prosperity, security. There's no way I can repay you for this."

"There's nothing to repay," Sasuke says. He stands, holds out his hand. Sakura takes it, and he helps her to her feet. "You saved my life. Now I've saved yours."

* * *

At home, she has to haul water from the spring, bucket by bucket, in order to take a bath. Not so here. Sakura lets herself soak in the ofuro, feet propped up on the edge of the wooden tub. She ran the water almost scalding, and she enjoys the nearly-but-not-quite painful sensation of being surrounded by heat and steam. After a day on the road she feels dirty, sweaty, and this is exactly what she needs to relax.

She washes her hair with a shampoo that smells like honeysuckles and her body with apple blossom soap. Then Sakura climbs out, dries herself with the softest towels she's ever felt, and dresses in her old, ragged nightgown. She goes to the bedroom, turns off the lights, slips beneath the bed covers, and snuggles a plush pillow. Sakura misses the warmth of her sisters on either side of her—even Ino, who kicks in her sleep.

Darkness surrounds her on all sides, a yawning black, wide and empty. Tired as she is, sleep won't come. Because she's thinking of her family and her place in Sasuke's home. Are her little sisters fighting over new kimonos? Bought and paid for though she is, does Sasuke think of her as a guest? A long lost friend? Something else, something more?

Part of her disbelieves that Sasuke could truly be the boy she helped, but no one besides she knew about Ryu. The only logical possibility is that he's telling the truth.

The door opens, and although it's too dark to see properly, she knows somehow, that it is Sasuke.

She should say something. Scold him for not knocking, ask him why he's here, but Sakura feels suddenly unable to speak, the words she should say caught somewhere in her throat. He walks to the bed. Close, closer, until he's right beside her. He doesn't say or do anything. All she can hear is his steady breathing, and all she can see is the shadowed outline of a man. After a long moment she realizes he's waiting. Waiting for her to invite or reject him, and she knows she ought to tell him to leave, but Sakura thinks of the night she spent next to Ryu—no, next to _Sasuke_. How she hadn't slept so peacefully before or since. So she scoots over, making room for him, and pats the place next to her. He climbs into bed, beneath the covers, and lies so near to her that she can feel the heat of him. But he doesn't touch her, makes no move to press his body to hers or wrap an arm around her waist.

Sakura realizes that the strange feeling she's experiencing is disappointment.

* * *

When she wakes in the morning, Sakura finds the bed empty. There is no indentation on his pillow, no sign at all that someone slept beside her. And when she sees Sasuke at breakfast, he makes no comment about the night before. It's almost as if she dreamed up a stranger to comfort her in the darkness.

Sakura spends her morning exploring the castle and its grounds. When she returns for lunch, Sasuke tells her about the history of his home, how it was once a stronghold for great warriors.

Then he invites her to the training yard and introduces her to a thirty-something, grey-haired man wearing a mask. A scar disfigures his left eye, and he holds himself in the same way Sasuke does, with quiet confidence and something approaching grace.

"I'm Kakashi," he says.

"Sakura."

Then he turns to Sasuke and says, "Ready to spar?"

"Always." Sasuke says to Sakura, "You don't have to stay. I just wanted you to meet Kakashi. He's the one who raised me after my parents died, who brought me home and—and helped me recover."

She smiles. "I'm glad you found each other. And if you don't mind, I'd like to watch."

Sakura doesn't regret staying. The fight between Kakashi and Sasuke, master and student, is almost like a dance. Their blunted katanas flit around each other, rarely touching, but when they do it makes a frightful noise, steel scraping against steel. She finds herself holding her breath, watching every move, taking note of the ways to dodge and block and attack. _I want to do this_,she thinks.

In the end, youth trumps experience, and Sasuke makes what would be a killing blow if the blades weren't blunted. Kakashi clutches his side, where the sword struck him, and curses his protege.

Sasuke ignores his master, approaches her, and asks her, "What do you think?"

He's sweaty and breathing hard from his exertions, but no less handsome for it.

"I loved it," she says. "It was brutal and beautiful at the same time. I've never seen anything like that. And you were brilliant."

Sasuke smiles, almost too subtly to notice, and says, "Thank you."

"Could you—could you teach me how to fight?" Sakura asks.

His expression barely changes, but she can tell that she has surprised him. "Why would you want to learn that?"

_He wouldn't ask that of a man._ "Well, why did you?" she counters.

"So I could kill my brother," Sasuke says plainly, as if this is not a strange answer.

Sakura can't help but think of Karin and Ino. Her sisters, whom she was willing to degrade herself to save. Nothing in this world could compel her to hurt either of them.

Before she can ask, he says, "Itachi murdered our parents. Cut them down in front of me." Sasuke's voice has grown tight, either with rage or sorrow. "I don't know why he left me alive, but it was a mistake. I'll find him someday."

"I'm so sorry. I can't imagine what that must have been like," Sakura says, but it feels like an inadequate response. How can "sorry" help mend a hurt as grave as that? She's experienced in the healing arts: which herbs bring down a fever, midwifery, how to stitch a cut. Okaasan taught her these lessons before cholera took her. But the wounds of the body and the mind are different things, and Sakura doesn't know how to begin to help him.

"Enough about Itachi," Sasuke says. "You want to learn how to fight?"

"Yes." She could better defend herself and her family if she was practiced in this art, and there's something about the beauty of blades dancing that calls to her.

"It took me years to master the sword," he says.

"I'm a fast learner, and I'll work hard."

"I'll teach you, if you want," Sasuke says, "but not matter how fast you learn, it's going to take time. How long are you planning to stay exactly?"

"I haven't decided yet," Sakura says. "Anyway, leaving doesn't mean we'll never see one another again. We're—well, I consider you a friend, Sasuke-kun. If you'd told me who you were from the start, there would have been no need to pay for my company. I'd have come willingly."

"You wouldn't have. Not with your family in the state they were in. You couldn't have left them behind," Sasuke says. "It's in your nature to help people, especially those you care about. No matter what it takes."

Sakura feels her cheeks grow warm, and she knows her face is probably as pink as her hair. "I'm not as good as you think."

"And I'm not good at all, but we're friends anyway, right?" he asks.

"Right," Sakura says, and she can't hold back a smile. "We are."

* * *

A week passes in luxury. Hot baths and sweet-smelling soaps. Three meals a day, and each one a feast. Forested grounds where she can gather goldenthread and rushfoil and dig for ginseng; by the time she goes home she'll have enough medicinal herbs that she can sell her services as a healer, the way her mother once did. Best of all, she has a soft bed and thick covers to protect her against the autumn chill.

When she isn't enjoying the splendors his castle has to offer, Sakura is training with Sasuke. He teaches her the fundamentals of swordplay, how to stand and how to hold your weapon. Basic moves that even a child could learn, but she doesn't complain.

And every night her visitor comes to sleep with her. He always arrives once the lights are out and takes his place by her side, darkness shrouding his face and form, but she knows it is Sasuke. They never talk and never touch, but she is comforted by his presence, by the sweet weight of him beside her.

Still, she's growing impatient. She _wants_ to be held, cradled, loved. So on her eighth night at the castle, when her companion climbs into bed, Sakura moves closer and puts her arm around him. Rests her hand against his shoulder and draws figures there: a circle, a star, a heart. He's wonderfully warm, and when she presses a barely-there kiss to his throat, she hears his sharp intake of breath.

Suddenly she's on her back, Sasuke on top of her, his strong arms caging her in. Sakura wraps her arms and legs around him, feels him shudder all over. He kisses her neck and says a silent word against her skin that might be her name. A breathless sound slips past her lips, but it's soon muffled by his mouth on hers.

They trade kisses and touches all night, well into the early hours of the morning, but he pulls away before the first light of dawn can creep into the room. Sakura reaches for him, hoping he'll stay, but Sasuke leaves her alone in the darkness.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Many thanks to uchihasass for reviewing this story. It's based on the folk tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," a variation of the Eros and Psyche myth. So I'm writing a fanfiction based on a Norwegian fairy tale, which is a derivative of a Greek myth, set in a Japanese influenced world. Got that straight? ;) For suvirena, who requested #45, Greek mythology AU, from the prompts list. This isn't exactly what you asked for, dear, but I hope you like it anyway!


	2. Part Two

**Part Two**

She sleeps until midday, when the sun is high overhead, filling the room with golden light. Sakura wakes, yawns, and stretches. The servants have been washing her same four kimonos—all patched and frayed, except for her mother's wedding silks. Today she wears Okaasan's blue kimono, the only thing she owns that she feels the least bit pretty in. It fits better after a week of good meals, and she smiles as she dresses. Last night is still much on her mind, and she hopes that Sasuke is thinking of her too.

Sakura finds him in the training yard, dueling Kakashi. This time his master wins, with a swift, decisive strike to the ribs. Sasuke doubles over, clutching his left side, and gives Kakashi the foulest look she's ever seen. (So he's a sore loser; this is good to know.)

After his sensei leaves, Sasuke walks over to her and says, "You're finally awake."

"I was up late," she says, smiling. Sakura wraps her arms around his neck. Stands on the tips of her toes to close some of the distance between their heights. She expects him to lean down and kiss her, but he doesn't. Instead, Sasuke takes a step back, so that she's forced to let him go.

Sakura tilts her head to the side and asks, "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," he says stiffly.

"But last night—"

"Do you want to train?" he interrupts.

"No," Sakura says. "I want to talk."

Sasuke looks away from her. "There's nothing to talk about."

* * *

When Sasuke comes to bed, she turns away. He puts a careful hand on her shoulder, silently entreating her to face him, but Sakura remembers the way he brushed off her affection this morning. As if she is good enough to touch at night, but not in the light of day. Then he kisses the nape of her neck, a soft apology pressed to her sensitive skin, and she weakens. Sakura lets him turn her over, so that she's on her back beside him. There's just enough moonlight coming in through the windows that she can see the shape of him above her, if not his features. She reaches up and traces Sasuke's cheek, exploring his dark-hidden beauty with her fingertips.

Slowly, softly, he presses his mouth to hers, giving her ample opportunity to refuse his advances if she wishes to. She's still angry and more than a little hurt, but Sakura kisses him back.

_I could touch you forever and never grow tired of it._

* * *

At breakfast, Sasuke says, "Suigetsu is going to town for supplies tomorrow. If you want to write a letter to your family, he could deliver it for you."

She smiles. "Thank you. I'd like that very much."

Sakura starts her letter with promises that she's being well taken care of; she even brags about the luxury of the castle to help soothe her father's and sisters' fears. Ino she thanks again for their mother's kimono, and she tells Karin how much she misses brushing her unruly red hair. Sakura swears that she isn't being forced to stay any longer than she wishes, and that she'll come home as soon as she feels her debt to Sasuke has been paid. A lie, that, because it's not obligation but desire that's keeping her at the castle now.

She ends up writing five pages, and when she hands over the envelope to Suigetsu, he laughs, saying, "Are you sure you don't want to have this book bound?"

"Oh shut up," she says. "You better go to town before I throttle you."

"I've seen sacks of rice more intimidating. Heavier too," Suigetsu says, grinning.

Sakura pops him upside the head, too gently to be anything but teasing. "I'll have you know that Sasuke has been teaching me kenjutsu, and if you keep bothering me I'll make sure you regret it."

Suigetsu shrugs. "If you don't stop threatening me, you'll have to go without the gifts Sasuke told me to pick up for you in town."

"You're kidding?" Sakura asks, suddenly sober and slightly embarrassed. "Surely he knows that living here is gift enough for me."

"Apparently not," Suigetsu says. He taps her on the head with her own letter and says goodbye.

Once he's gone, Sakura searches the castle for Sasuke. She finally finds him in the library, reading a thick-spined book of folk tales.

"Suigetsu says you sent him to town to get gifts for me," she says, without preamble.

Sasuke keeps reading. "Suigetsu needs to learn to keep his mouth shut," he says evenly.

Sakura walks closer, and when he still doesn't look at her, she plucks the book out of his hands.

"That was rude," Sasuke says in a colorless voice.

"So is refusing to make eye contact," Sakura answers reasonably. "Surely you know that I'm endlessly grateful already? That I don't need presents. That I don't need _anything_ anymore, thanks to you."

Sasuke grabs the book back and says, "The gifts are perfectly practical, I promise."

Somehow, Sakura doubts that his idea of practicality aligns with hers.

Suigetsu returns the next day, bearing three letters, and Sakura tears at the envelopes, greedy as a magpie with silver. Otousan is relieved to hear that she's well, while her sisters demand more details of the castle in the woods, and of the mysterious man who presides there. Sakura determines to write another letter soon, answering all of her family's questions and asking a dozen more of her own.

She's so excited about hearing from her father and sisters that for a moment she forgets about Sasuke's gifts. Suigetsu reminds her with a gentle hint that she might find something to her liking in her room.

Sakura hurries upstairs, and as soon as she opens the door she gasps. Laid out on her bed are five new kimonos, each one more lovely than the last, colored sage green, peacock blue, slate grey, and pale pink. The last is a rich, deep red patterned with cherry blossoms, her namesake. A garment more fit for an empress than a simple farmer's daughter.

Sakura wears the green kimono to dinner that evening, and when she sees Sasuke she hugs him. He startles at the contact, as he always does outside of the darkness of her bedroom, but he tolerates her touch with good humor. "I take it you like your presents?" he asks.

"I love them," Sakura says. She looks up at him, smiling. "You're spoiling me rotten, do you know that?"

"That's the point," Sasuke says, and in an uncharacteristic show of affection, he tucks her short hair behind her ear. "You're due a little spoiling."

There's something almost sorrowful in his expression, but Sakura doesn't want to ruin the moment by asking what she's done to sadden him.

* * *

Sakura stays with Sasuke for another week, and then two more, as autumn turns to winter. Leaves red, gold, and brown fall to the earth, stripping the trees naked. She spends her time reading from the near-endless library, practicing her kenjutsu, playing shogi with Suigetsu or Kakashi, and writing to her family (who have moved back to the very farm they lost years ago). Her days are filled with leisure and hot meals aplenty, and her nights are a tangle of kisses, caresses, and sweet dreams. Afraid that she might scare Sasuke off if she speaks to him, Sakura decides not to talk about what happens in the dark hours.

On the first day of December, she sits on the porch and watches snow fall. Dusting the frosted grass until the ground is buried in two, three, four inches of it, and there's nothing but glittering white in every direction.

Sasuke brings her a cup of hot tea and sits in the chair beside her.

Sakura says, "It's so beautiful. Like something from another world." She laughs, takes a sip of her tea. "Here I am, wearing silk, living in a castle, talking to the richest man in the prefecture. I can barely recognize my life."

"Is that so bad?" Sasuke asks.

"No, it's not." She runs a hand through her hair. "You know, the day you came to make your offer, I was on my way out the door. Ready to sell myself to save my sisters from starving."

Sasuke stiffens beside her. "I'm sorry it came to that. I should have helped you sooner."

"Don't worry over it," Sakura says. "You came just in time."

"I remember what it's like, to be truly hungry," Sasuke says. "After Itachi killed our parents, I ran away from home. Wandered in the woods for days, lost, trying to find my way to town. I ate berries and roots, but that only made me sick and hungrier. I thought I was going to die in the forest, all alone. Until I wandered onto your family's farm, and you saved me."

Sakura smiles. "I guess that's just what we do for each other."

"How did you survive so long?" Sasuke asks. "Being hungry like that?"

"We made meals out of whatever we could. Tree bark tea for breakfast, wild berries for lunch, rice for dinner. Until the rice ran out, anyway. I once caught a dove. It walked right into my hands, friendly and trusting. I killed it. Twisted its fragile little neck and cooked it up for Ino, my youngest sister." Sakura shakes her head, trying to dispel memories best forgotten.

Later, at night, when he comes to her room, Sasuke holds her close while she cries. Once she's too worn out to shed another tear, he wipes her cheeks, kisses her forehead, and holds her against his chest until she falls asleep.

* * *

The snow continues to fall well into the heart of winter. Suigetsu is forced to retire the horse-drawn carriage and instead make his trips on a sled pulled by sure-footed mules. He makes a supply run once every two weeks, and each time he goes to town, he returns with new letters from Sakura's father and sisters. And as the months pass, these messages request with greater and greater urgency that she come home.

"I'm selfish," Sakura says.

She's facing Sasuke in a shogi match. It's unusual for him to take time to play games (he doesn't have much patience where such frivolities are concerned), but today he's indulging her.

"Selfish?" he asks. "Why do you say that?"

"I should have gone home weeks ago," Sakura says. "My father misses me and worries about me, my sisters too."

Sasuke picks up a tile, turns it over between his fingers, toying with it. "Then why are you still here?"

Sakura smiles. "Like I said: I'm selfish. I want to stay with you."

Sasuke remains quiet for a long while. Then he makes his move, taking one of her pawns. Removing it from the board swiftly and cleanly, as if it never was. "I want you to stay too," he says.

She thinks about reaching across the board to touch him, but she knows he'll balk from her. For whatever reason, he only has the courage to allow her affection after dark, when he's hidden from her sight. Maybe it feels less real to him in the night hours, like an impossible dream he can dismiss later.

* * *

She waits in bed, awake and alert for over an hour. Just when she thinks he won't come tonight, the door opens, barely creaking on its hinges, then shuts behind her visitor. He joins her in bed, a man made of shadows and secrets. Countless times she has considered disrupting the heavy silence and turning on a light, dispelling the mystery of her nightly companion. Sakura knows with an odd sort of certainty that it is Sasuke, despite never seeing his face, but there is a part of her that worries she's wrong. That she has let some stranger kiss her, hold her, touch her.

She turns over, facing away from him. Sasuke places a gentle hand on her arm, coaxing her without words. Sakura closes her eyes and allows herself a moment not to think, to just feel. Lets him wrap his arm around her waist. His hard body is flush against her back, and his hand roams across the soft plane of her stomach, her hip, her thigh, then back up. Sakura shivers, nervous and excited, and presses herself against him. Sasuke plays with the strap of her nightgown, slides it over her shoulder, testing how far she'll let him go. There's nothing under this threadbare dress but her panties, and she knows what she should do—except that _should _doesn't line up with what she _wants_.

So Sakura takes the task out of his hands, sits up and undresses herself. She's thankful now for the darkness, because he can't see the blush that's coloring her cheeks. Sasuke pulls her onto his lap, and she wraps her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. She loves the feel of him beneath her, warm and solid. He smells like a fire burning low in the hearth, half embers and half ashes, and when they kiss, he tastes of the fine sake served at dinner. Strong hands wander down either side of her spine, grip her waist, cup her breasts. At first he's almost too careful as he touches her there, gentle bordering on hesitant, and it makes her wonder whether he's ever done this before. Now wouldn't be the time to ask, even if she could bring herself to break the silence. But he gains confidence when she leans into his hands, encouraging him to keep going.

Sakura tugs at his shirt, and Sasuke pulls it over his head. It's her turn to touch, and she isn't shy about running her hands over his arms and down his chest, feeling the hardness of his flat stomach. For a moment she teases the fabric of his pants, but Sasuke catches her wrist, not ungently, and instead brings her hand to his mouth. He presses feather light kisses to her knuckles, her fingers, the heel of her palm. The barely-there contact leaves her breathless and wanting, and she decides she needs his lips on hers again. Sakura threads her fingers through Sasuke's hair, guides him back to her mouth, and kisses him until he makes a low sound in the back of his throat.

They don't sleep at all, too busy exploring one another to bother with rest, but when the sky begins to lighten from black to deepest blue, he breaks away from her. Cups her cheek one last time, and she can feel the tender sting of _goodbye_ laced into that caress.

He leaves as quietly as he came in, an anonymous visitor whose touch she can still feel. She falls back onto her plush pillows, suddenly exhausted from her sleepless night, body tired but mind racing and wakeful, full with thoughts of Sasuke.

Sakura thinks he might not be an easy man to love, but she could manage it.

* * *

She blushes when she sees Sasuke the next morning. He may not have seen her nakedness last night, but he certainly felt it. Naturally, he treats her no differently, if kindly and pleasantly enough. One would never guess that just a few hours ago he was panting against her skin, making hushed noises of pleasure and frustration.

But Sakura remembers every moment, and she isn't as well-schooled at hiding her feelings as he is. Still, she keeps her thoughts to herself, privately treasuring the intimacy they shared, and says, "Good morning, Sasuke-kun."

"There isn't much morning left," he says, and there's the hint of an arrogant smirk lifting the corner of his mouth.

"I didn't sleep well," Sakura says. She sits beside him at the table, sips the mushroom soup being served for the first course of lunch.

"Nightmares?" he asks lightly.

"No, quite the opposite. I had a good dream, vivid and sweet, but I woke from it too soon." She looks at him, hoping for some slip in his composure, but Sasuke only eats his soup, as even and imperturbable as ever.

Sakura scowls, disappointed and a little angry that he won't recognize their last night together, if only in some subtle way. She's sick unto death of needless secrecy and silence.

Before thinking over it too much, she says, "I want to go home."

That gets his attention. Sasuke sets his spoon down and looks at her. "Just yesterday you said you wanted to stay here. What changed?"

_Nothing and everything_, she thinks. Sakura fidgets with a lock of her hair, which now nearly brushes her shoulders. Spring knocks on winter's door outside, and she has gained back every ounce of weight she lost to starvation last autumn. She's lingered here too long, letting her reckless heart hold her to a man who doesn't want to be loved.

Even so, she can't imagine not returning to this castle, to Suigetsu's crooked smile and Kakashi's wry humor. To _him_. "I'd like to come back, after I've visited with my father and sisters. If you'll have me, that is."

"You're always welcome here, Sakura," he says, and a warmth colors his voice that she's rarely heard before. "Suigetsu goes to town again in three days. He can take you home to your family."

"Thank you," she says, "for understanding."

Perhaps because she will soon be leaving, Sasuke spoils her even more than usual. He has the cooks make her favorite dishes for every meal and treats her more gently when they spar. Then he takes her outside and builds a snowman with her. The cold is almost too much to stand, but it's worth enduring to see Sasuke do something so carefree and purposeless. He's driven by such a singular, consuming ambition that it scares her, but Sakura tells herself to worry about that on another, less perfect day.

From sunrise to sunset she's happy, but the hours between dusk and dawn are nothing short of blissful. Sasuke seems hungrier for her, more aggressive and less tightly controlled. That discipline he clings to is slipping, and Sakura takes advantage of this weakness. The evening before she leaves, they end up completely naked with one another for the first time, Sasuke on top of her, his hips cradled between her thighs.

She kisses his throat, tastes his sweat on her tongue, and it means: _Have me. Please have me._

Sakura can feel him, hard and ready, pressed against the softness of her sex. He wants this as much as she does, she knows it.

Instead, he draws away, sits up on his knees, breathing heavily. At first she thinks he means to leave, and every inch of her cries out in protest. Some sound of yearning escapes her, but it changes to one of pleasure a moment later. Sasuke has bent down and put his mouth between her legs. The warmth of his tongue makes her tense from head to toe, anticipation and nervousness making her body rigid. She grips his hair with one hand, her sheets with the other, and holds on with all the strength she has left.

Sasuke works her with his mouth, at first hesitantly, but with growing surety as she whimpers and gasps under his touch. The sensations build and build, until Sakura feels herself on the brink of coming, trembling and arching beneath him.

And then he stops. Withdraws from her, leaving her a shivering, unfulfilled wreck, and pulls his clothes on. Her heartbeat sounds in her ears, heavy and rapid, and it's on the tip of her tongue to ask him to keep kissing her _there_, but he's gone before she can find the courage to speak.

She lies awake after he leaves, wondering whether she did something wrong, until it dawns on her that this was not a punishment.

He left her aching and unsated on purpose. Trying to exact the promise of her return by making her need him in bed.

Sasuke didn't have to do that, because she couldn't keep herself from coming back to him even if she wanted to.

* * *

Karin hugs her first, and her embrace is as fierce as Sakura remembers. Then Ino wraps her arms around both of them, and she breathes in the scents of her sisters, spring flowers and ginger. When they finally let her go, Otousan picks her up and spins her around.

"We missed you," Ino says.

Karin nods. "I'm so glad you're home."

"I'm only here for a visit," Sakura says. "I'll be going back in two weeks, when Suigetsu comes to town again."

"What?" Ino's smile turns to a glare, quick as lightning. "Why?"

"Because I want to be with Sasuke. He's my friend, and I don't want to leave him alone." She's only sparing them a pitiful portion of the truth, but Sakura can't bring herself to say that she's falling in love with a man who won't even touch her under the light of day. That she wants to live with him more than she wants to come home.

Otousan frowns at her. "I've been worried sick about you," he says. "You shouldn't stay under that boy's roof because you feel guilty or obligated, Sakura."

"I don't!" she says. "Not anymore. It just doesn't seem right, to abandon him after everything he's done for us."

"So you'll abandon your family instead?" Karin asks. She plucks at the fine pink silk of Sakura's kimono. "Are you bought so easily as this?"

She slaps Karin across the face, her hand whipping out to smack her little sister's cheek without even considering the consequences. She regrets it as soon as her thoughts catch up to her actions, and she says, "Karin, I—I didn't mean to do that."

Karin only looks shocked, but Ino pushes Sakura, her sky blue eyes brimming with tears. "He's ruined you," she says. "What happened to my big sister?"

"Stop this," Otousan says. He's a quiet man, her father, but when he raises his voice, like he does now, everyone listens.

Sakura hangs her head. "I'm so sorry, Otousan."

Maybe Ino is right. Maybe Sasuke and his luxuries have brought out the worst in her, the selfishness and pride she's always pushed down to deal with one responsibility or another. It's not a possibility she wants to consider.

* * *

Neither Ino nor Karin talks to her the next day, but by the third evening of her visit, they come around. There's still a hesitance in the way they talk to her, a wall of distrust that was never there before, but conversation stays civil and happy enough.

"You've kissed him, haven't you?" Ino asks.

"What? No," Sakura lies.

They're sitting outside, blankets wrapped around them and spread out beneath them to protect against the chill of a dying winter. The stars overhead shine brightly against a canvas of midnight blue sky.

"Oh, please," Karin says, rolling her eyes. "You're the world's worst liar, Sakura. And besides, you love us too much to leave us behind for a friend. He's got to be more to you than that."

Every instinct she has tells her to keep lying, but these are her _sisters_, and how can she hope to regain their trust if she does nothing to earn it?

She tells them almost everything. How he visits her bed after dusk and always leaves before dawn lifts the shroud of darkness. That he won't acknowledge their intimacy during the day, but he makes up for it with his tenderness at night.

"What if you're wrong?" Karin asks. "What if it isn't him at all? You said there are other men at the castle. It could be Suigetsu or Sasuke's sensei."

"It's not," Sakura says. "I just know, all right?"

"Then it won't make any difference when you light a lamp," Ino says. "Promise that when you go back to the castle you'll do that."

Karin says, "Ino's right. You need to know for sure."

It's something she should have done a long time ago, Sakura knows. So she nods, takes her sisters' hands, and says, "I promise."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I blame this update on joblessness and too much tea. I hope you enjoy my fairy tale SasuSaku. For suvirena, who requested a Greek mythology AU quite some time ago. :)


End file.
